Breaking news reporter

Several flares were set off at Soundwave, with one burning the arm of one woman. Photo: Instagram

A young woman has been treated for severe burns to her arm after a flare was ignited in the middle of a mosh pit at the Soundwave rock festival at Sydney Olympic Park, according to the promoter.

Police will examine footage and photographs of the incident captured by festival-goers and posted online, which show the magnesium flare being set off during Bring Me The Horizons' set on Sunday night.

A NSW Police spokesman confirmed that three people were treated for burns after a flare was fired near stage three.

A number of flares were lit during the festival, including this one during the Metallica show.

"Police are trying to determine who lit the flare," the spokesman said.

Advertisement

Soundwave promoter AJ Maddah tweeted angrily about the incident and urged festival-goers to try to identify the culprit.

"Dear piece of sh*t who lit the flare in BMTH pit: Tonight you seriously burned and disfigured a young girl. I hope you f***ing get yours," he wrote.

"If you see anyone with a lit flare please take their photo and tweet to me so I can hand to police.

"If anyone can correctly identify this son of a bitch I will shower you with so much tickets, backstage and cash you wont know what to do.

"If we catch anyone w/ flares you'll not only be evicted/arrested, I'll dedicate every iota of energy & money I can muster to ruin your life."

He later tweeted: "Thank you twitterverse we now have images of this jerk from multiple angles. Hopefully we can post asap and get him identified."

One person tweeted: "my sister can identify one of the guys that was involved with lighting the flares."

Reports from those at the concert suggest that three flares were actually lit during Soundwave, one during the Metallica set - where about 40,000 people were watching the heavy metal band - and two during the Bring Me The Horizon set on stage three, a small stage outside the main stadium with an audience of about 800 people.

According to Twitter user @DanielTome, the person who lit a flare at the Metallica stage was hosed down.

On Twitter there have also been reports that one of the flare incidents occurred when a reveller let off a flare while sitting on someone's shoulders. The flare hit something above and dropped back into the crowd.

Police were unable to confirm how many flares were ignited.

More than 200 police officers patrolled the festival, which attracted more than 75,000 revellers on Sunday.

Police identified 54 people allegedly in possession of illicit drugs, including cannabis, ecstasy, ice, and amphetamines.

Throughout the day, 82 revellers were ejected from the event by police and security staff, many for being intoxicated.

Acting Assistant Commissioner Peter Lennon said that the majority of the crowd was well behaved.

"Large crowds descended on Olympic Park to see their favourite bands and an overwhelming majority of the 75,252 people in attendance behaved responsibly, but there were a small number who let the rest down," he said.